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Introduction to Australian Literature (ENGL1100)
School of English, Media Studies and Art History (EMSAH) - University of Queensland
Semester 1 / 2008

Texts

y separately published work icon Fly Away Peter The Bread of Time to Come David Malouf , 1982 London : Chatto and Windus , 1982 Z22123 1982 single work novella war literature (taught in 14 units) 'For three very different people brought together by their love for birds, life on the Queensland coast in 1914 is the timeless and idyllic world of sandpipers, ibises and kingfishers. In another hemisphere civilization rushes headlong into a brutal conflict. Life there is lived from moment to moment. Inevitably, the two young men - sanctuary owner and employee - are drawn to the war, and into the mud and horror of the trenches of Armentieres. Alone on the beach, their friend Imogen, the middle-aged wildlife photographer, must acknowledge for all three of them that the past cannot be held.' (Source: Publisher's website)
y separately published work icon Loaded Christos Tsiolkas , Milsons Point : Vintage Australia , 1995 Z565443 1995 single work novel (taught in 40 units)

'Families can detonate. Some families are torn apart forever by one small act, one solitary mistake. In my family it was a series of small explosions; consistent, passionate, pathetic. Cruel words, crude threats... We spurred each other on till we reached a crescendo of pain and we retired exhausted to our rooms, in tears or in fury.

'Ari is nineteen, unemployed and a poofter who doesn't want to be gay. He is looking for something - anything - to take him away from his aimless existence in suburban Melbourne. He doesn't believe in anyone or anything, except the power of music. All he wants to do is dance, take drugs, have sex and change the world.

'For Ari, all the orthodoxies of family, sex, politics and work have collapsed. Caught between the traditional Greek world of his parents and friends and the alluring, destructive world of clubs, chemicals and anonymous sex, all Ari can do is ease his pain in the only ways he knows how.

'Written in stark, uncompromising prose, Loaded is a first novel of great passion and power.' (From the publisher's website.)
y separately published work icon Our Sunshine Robert Drewe , Sydney : Picador , 1991 Z305264 1991 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 2 units) 'An imaginative recreation of the inner life of Ned Kelly, hero and devil of the Australian outback, which carries the reader into a landscape of murder, prejudice, sexuality, persecution, robbery, vanity, religion, greed, politics and corruption.' (Publication summary)
y separately published work icon The Colour of Walls Janet Kelly , Carlton North : The Vulgar Press , 2003 Z1081975 2003 single work novel (taught in 2 units)
y separately published work icon The Australian Short Story : An Anthology from the 1890s to the 1980s Laurie Hergenhan (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1986 Z380969 1986 anthology short story (taught in 13 units)

Degrees

Bachelor of Arts

Description

A brief overview of Australian literature focussing on some of its central themes. Also a guide to reading literary texts. Focuses on short stories, novels and poetry.

“Introduction to Australian Literature” (ENGL1100) provides a general introduction to the study of Australian literature. In reading texts from a range of genres and periods, students will be introduced to critical reading skills, and to significant themes in Australian writing.

The course comprises three sections:

1. Study of two novels which consider the relationship between story-telling, history and fiction: Robert Drewe's Our Sunshine, about Ned Kelly, and Janet Kelly's The Colour of Walls.

2. A study of short stories from the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. This section of the course looks in detail at literary form and stylistic innovation.

3. Discussion of two short novels which consider key themes in Australian culture: war and masculity (in David Malouf's Fly away Peter) and sexuality and cultural identity (in Christos Tsiolkas' Loaded).

The course will also introduce you to research resources in the field of Australian literature, among which the most helpful is the Austlit database (at http://www.austlit.edu.au/). You are encouraged to browse in Austlit to get a sense of the range of contemporary and historical writing, and criticism.

Assessment

Final Exam

40%

Tutorial Participation

5%

Short-answer questions - Analyzing Literature

20%

Essay - Reading Short Stories

35%

Supplementary Texts

Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle. Literature, Criticism and Theory. Third edition. Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Ltd, 2004.

AustLit: Online Database for Australian Literature

Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.

Wilde, William, Joy Hooton and Barry Andrews. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. 2nd ed. Oxford: London, 1994.

Other Details

Offered in: 2007, 2006
Current Campus: St Lucia
Levels: Undergraduate
Coordinator:
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